Ceiling construction

ABSTRACT

A ceiling panel and a ceiling constructed of such panels. The panels are made of a powder or finely divided fiber like material supported on a material which will be melted by heat. When the sheet of support material is melted away, the powder will fall and put out the fire without damage to adjacent materials, which is inherent in water fire fighting.

United States Patent Naglowsky 1541 CEILING CONSTRUCTION 2,772,74212/1956 Sprankle ..52/309X 3,418,766 12/1968 Jackson ..52/3llX 51Apr.1l, 1972 2/1944 Doyle 169/2 Segil Crocker.....

Cholin et a1. ....169/26 Primary Examiner-M. Henson Wood, .lr. AssistantExaminer-Michael Y. Mar Att0rneyCharles L. Lovercheck [5 7] ABSTRACT Aceiling panel and a ceiling constructed of such panels. The panels aremade of a powder or finely divided fiber like material supported on amaterial which will be melted by heat. When the sheet of supportmaterial is melted away, the powder will fall and put out the firewithout damage to adjacent materials, which is inherent in water firefighting.

1 Claim, 6 Drawing Figures PATENTEDAPR H 1912 3. 654,996

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CEILING CONSTRUCTION STATEMENT OF INVENTION This invention relates toceilings and, more particularly, to ceiling panels having finely dividedfire extinguishing material supported therein.

STATEMENT OF PRIOR ART U.S. Pat. No. 3,040,815 shows a meltable bag ofpowder material which will fall down to extinguish a fire; however; thisbag of material is not in a neat and practical arrangement forappearance and for utility.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the invention to provide afire-proof ceil- Another object of the invention is to provide a fireextinguisher structure in combination with a ceiling panel.

Yet another object of the invention is to provide an improved ceilingpanel which is simple in construction, economical to manufacture, andsimple and efficient to use and which will extinguish fires which maystart in the space below it.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Nowwith more particular reference to the drawings, FIGS. 1, 2, and 3 show aceiling supported on a frame made up of longitudinal frame members 12and lateral members 16 which are supported together to encloserectangular spaces or strips.

between walls. The frame members may be in the form of invetted T's sothat the edges of the panels are supported on the flanges of the Tforming supports in a well known drop ceiling type of arrangement. Theframes may be suspended from an upper framework and the end memberssupported around the walls of the room.

The panels are constructed of a fire resistant backing member 13 withdownwardly extending members 18 which form rectangular pockets in whichthe finely divided powderlike material 15 is disposed. A backing layerof insulation indicated at 14 may be supported on the fire resistantmember 13 or the fire resistant material itself may be made of someinsulation like material, for example, fiberglass. The powder may befinely divided asbestos or it could be bicarbonate of soda or any otherfire extinguishing material. It could also be a foaming material of oneof the well known varieties of fire extinguishing foam. A layer ofmeltable material indicated at 20 rnay be glued to the partition members18 to form spaces or pockets in which the finely divided material isdisposed.

In the embodiment of the invention shown in FIGS. 4, 5, and 6, a backingmaterial of a fire resistant type indicated at 113 is formed withdownwardly extending partition members 118 to which the meltablematerial 120 is attached by gluing or the like. The meltable materialmay be of vinyl sheet or it may be polyethylene or any of the well knownlow melting point thermoplastic materials. It could also be a paper thatwould be consumed by a fire. The powder material is disposed in thepockets so that it will fall out when the cover is melted or destroyed.

What is claimed is: 1. A ceiling comprising longitudinal and lateralframe members formed of inverted Ts,

means supporting said frame members above a floor forming a ceiling,

a plurality of ceiling panels on said frame members supporting saidceiling panels,

said ceiling panels comprising a backing member made of fire resistantfiberglass material,

a sheet of meltable vinyl material supported in planar relation by saidframe members defining a space therebetween below said fire resistantmaterial,

a powder disposed between said backing member and said meltablematerial,

a partition member at each side of said powder,

said partition members being sandwiched between said backing member andsaid sheet of meltable material defining a frame of sufficient thicknessfor maintaining said backing member in a spaced, flat, and parallelrelationship with said sheet of meltable material and forming acompartment therebetween,

and a finely divided material contained in said compartment andsupported on said meltable material whereby a fire in the room belowsaid ceiling will melt said meltable material and said finely dividedmaterial will fall onto said fire, extinguishing said fire.

